Recently, in a forum thread titled “Why can’t Cantonese be used in writing directly?“, I learned that there’s a new Cantonese novel. While I was looking up info about the book, to my surprise, I found several more newly published novels that are written in Cantonese.
I call this wave of written Cantonese literature “HKGolden Literature”, because all the books share the following features:
- All the authors are male members of HKGolden, which is a culturally and politically influential forum in Hong Kong.
- Their works were first published on HKGolden’s 講故台 (Storytelling Channel).
- Their stories are about their love lives and careers.
Here’s the book list.
- 男人唔可以窮 (Men can’t be poor) and its sequel 男人唔可以窮 貳 (Men can’t be poor Ⅱ), by 薛可正
- The story was first published on HKGolden forum in Nov 2012: link
- Both of the stories can be read online for free: link1 and link2
- 男人唔可以窮 was the bestseller in the literature category during March 2013
- 後香港小男人網上日記 (The Diary of the Post Hong Kong Little Man), by 栢原太賀
- According to the author, the book is inspired by the famous written Cantonese literature 小男人週記 (The Diary of the Little Man).
- The story was first published on HKGolden in May 2012: link
- 一個旅程, 俾個港女搞到玩得唔係咁開心 (A journey was spoiled by a Kong Gal)
- The story was first published on HKGolden on March 2013: Link
Even though the stories can be read online for free, I think people who support Cantonese should at least buy a copy.
This is great!
This is fantastic. I will buy one copy if I have a chance to Hong Kong.
I would love to buy them. Do you have a bookstore link for me? I am living overseas.
You can buy on YesAsia
男人唔可以窮: http://bit.ly/1702i2t
男人唔可以窮 貳: http://bit.ly/15g76CJ
後香港小男人網上日記: http://bit.ly/17DLKiV
一個旅程,俾個港女搞到玩得唔係咁開心: http://bit.ly/1bhYUrD
Thank you very much for writing this. I will definitely look out for these novels next time I go to Hong Kong. Please continue to compile lists of literature in authentic literary Cantonese; I would like to accumulate a small Cantonese library for my children to have the chance to read and nurture their mother tongue in the future.
Very cool! Thanks for sharing. I’m interested in learning written Cantonese and these might be helpful (or at least interesting).
this article feels like hving quit a lot of grammatical mistakes…..
lol no it’s grammatically correct
Are there any book stores in Hong Kong that still sell these books? I’ve gone to a few but haven’t been able to find them.
Thank you for your posts about this subject.